Bond Offerings Take Aim at $3.97 Trillion Record

Corporate bond sales worldwide are poised to set an annual record as soon as this week as companies lock in borrowing costs that forecasters say are bound to rise. Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN), Volkswagen AG (VOW) and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. have propelled offerings to $3.96 trillion this year, about $7 billion short of the peak of $3.97 trillion in 2012, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Company bond sales in the U.S. have already set annual records. In a year when debt underwriters from Bank of America Corp. to Barclays Plc predicted a slowdown as the Federal Reserve scaled back from its debt purchases, issuance has soared as a decline in benchmark borrowing costs that almost no one anticipated pushed yields close to record lows. While central banks in Europe and Japan have stepped up their own stimulus efforts, the likelihood the Fed will raise interest rates next year has fueled the borrowing binge by companies globally. “It’s like a constant ‘look-over-your-shoulder’ type scenario,” Jody Lurie, a corporate credit analyst at Janney Montgomery Scott LLC in Philadelphia, said in a telephone interview. “It continues to encourage companies to not risk missing the opportunity” to sell bonds. By Katherine Chiglinsky and Sridhar Natarajan

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